The Grenada gazette. (Grenada, Miss.) 1885-18??, 1887-02-26
SLEEP AND REST.

Some Good Advice for People Who Arr
Troubled With sleeplessness.
Sleep is q distinctly natural function,
and therefore, both as regards its in.
duction and management, ought to b
performed in conformity with natural
laws. That it is a state which should
occur periodically is evident from the
rotation of day and night, and ap-
proximatcly we ought to 60 to sleep
when the natural light fails and wake
with the sunrise. It will therefore be
evident that nature meant US to sleep
longer in the winter than in the sum-
mer, for the sufficiently plain reason
that the maintenance Of animal heat
during the cold season necessarily re-
quircs a larger consumption Of energy
than is expended on this vital purpose
in the warm season. 1t has been al.
legged that the organism takes in and
stores just rs much oxygen during
sleep as it has expended during the
waking hours, and when the reserves
are replenished wakes; but this is only
q half truth, in so far as it is a truth at
all. What happens is rather a rest
from the rapid movements Of waking
life, during which the slower activities
of function have time to overtake the
faster ones. Recuperation by nutri-
ton is a more ia rdy process than con-
sumption by work and heat pro-
duction. and if the hare were not to
sleep the tortoise would be left hope
lcssly behind. 1t is essential to health
that the tortoise should not lag far in
the rear, and sleep must be just as
long as will enable the laggard nutri-
tive process to overtake the impetuous
destructive process. Practically, there
fore, a man should sleep until he is
refreshed. The mistake many people
make is in attempting to govern what
must be q matter of instinct by Volt
tional control. When we are weary
we ought to sleep, and when we wake
UP we should get up. There arc nc
more vicious habits than adopting
measures to keep awake, or employing
articles, or. still worse, resorting to
drugs and other devices to induce or
prolong sleep. Doing is the very
Generalization of the sleep function,
and from that pcrnic'ous habit arises
much of the so-called sleeplcssness-
more accurately wakefulness from which
multitudes suffer.
That day is not the time for sleep is
evident upon the face of the fact hat
nature has provided the night, wherein
10 man can Of ought to work. Instead
Of trying to lay down arbitrary rules as
to the length of sleep it would be wiser
to say: Work while it is day. sleep
when you are weary, which will be at
nightif the day has been spent in hon.
est and energetic labor. When you
wake, rise; and if the days work has
been sufficiently well done the time Of
waking will not be earlier than SUM
rise. The difficulties about sleep and
sleeplessness--apart from dreams-are
almost uniformly fruits Of a perverse
refusal to comply with the laws Of ma
ture. Take, for example, the case of q
man who car not sleep at night, Or
rather who, having fallen asleep,
wakes. If he is what is called strong
minded, he thinks, or perhaps reads.
and falls asleep again. This being res
pcated, lays the foundation Of q habit
Of waking in the night and
thinking or reading to induce sleep.
Before long the thinking or read
ing fails to induce sleep, and habitual
sleeplessncss occurs, for which rene.
dies are sought and mischief is done.
II the wakeful man would only rouse
himself on waking and get up and do
a full days work Of any sort, and not
doze during the day, when next the
night camc round his sixteen or twenty
hours of wakefulness would be reward
ed by a sleep Of nine or ten hours in
length; and one or two of these man.
full struggles against q perverted ten.
dency to abnormal habit would rectify
the error or avert the calamity. The
cure for s~leeplessness must be natural,
because sleep is . state Of natural
rhythmical function. You can not
tamper with tho striking movement Of
a clock without injuring it, and you can
not tamper with orderly recurrence Of
sleep without imparing the very consti-
tuition Of things on which the orderly
performance Of that function depends.
London Lancet.